Artist Statement Component

Introduction
When you go to a museum or check out an artists online portfolio, you may notice that
there is often a short text paragraph that accompanies a piece of art. The paragraph
may include background information about piece including the media used and the
dates of creation, but it may also include a description of what the artist is attempting
to convey. For all of the major assignments this semester, you will write your own artist
statement as a way to detail the various choices you made in composing your project
so that your audience can better understand your product.
Objective
Upon completion of this assignment, students will be able to:
Articulate the rhetorical, technological, methodological, and design choices
made throughout the composing process
Support these choices by including evidence from the project
Assess how the specific choices are rhetorically effective based on the students
rhetorical goals for the project
Production Details
The artist statement should an alphabetic text accompaniment to your assignment. It
should be 500-750 words in order to fully address all aspects of the rhetorical, design,
methodological, and technological components of the assignment.
Address the following choices in your artist statement:
Rhetorical- What rhetorical choices did you make in your creative project? Who was
your intended audience for this project, and how did this influence your
process/product? What was your overall purpose with this project, and how did you
achieve this in your project?
Design- What form did you choose to use for your creative project, and how does this
form help you meet your rhetorical goals? What specific materials did you use in your
creative project (paper type, the dimensions, any fonts, colors, images, sounds, etc.)?
What elements of composition and design did you take into consideration, and how
did you utilize or subvert them in your project? How did each of these individual
choices contribute to your purpose in this project? How did these material choices

work together in order to enable you to achieve this purpose? Were there any choices
you made that you would remove?
Methodological- What was your approach to your creative project? What was your
initial approach to this project, and how did your thoughts change throughout the
course of it? What was your overall vision for this project, and how close does the final
product come to meeting that vision? In what ways did you succeed or miss your goal?
What skills that you previously had did you utilize in this project? What composing skills
from our class did you use in this project? What skills did you feel like you lacked
during this project? What did this project help you understand about composing or
your topic that you previously did not know?
Technological- What technologies (broadly understood) did you use in your project?
This may include specific software programs, means of recording, or even non-digital
technology such as pencils. What did the technology you used enable you to do? Why
did you pick those technologies? Did the technology constrain you in any ways, and if
so, how?
Assessment
The artist statement is a significant part of each assignment grade. I will evaluate the
artist statement based on the following criteria:
The clear articulation of the rhetorical and design decisions in the artist
statement (Does the artist statement address the rhetorical, methodological,
technological, and process choices in the project?)
The use of concrete evidence from the project in order to support these artistic
decisions (Does the artist statement offer specific examples to illustrate these
choices?)
The written quality and polish of the artist statement (Is the artist statement clear
and easy to follow? Are there typos, grammatical or mechanical errors, or
incomplete sentences?)